Success! Roanoke 'Harry Potter Festival' Changes Name To 'Generic Magic Festival' Due To WB's Bullying

from the copyrighta-trademarka dept

Earlier this summer, we discussed a policy shift at Warner Bros. regarding how it was enforcing its Harry Potter intellectual property that has resulted in the bullying of several fan conventions and gatherings. Events long left alone by WB to enjoy and promote the Potter franchise were suddenly getting threat letters and communications from the studio, informing them that all references to the franchise had to be removed. Many festivals, including one in Philadelphia, chose to simply shut down.

Others are going on, however, although perhaps not entirely as originally planned. Now, one might say, they are going on generically planned.

Although much smaller, even Roanoke' Harry Potter Festival has now changed its name. New names, new features, larger spaces and more magical stories can be expected to appear in this year’s Generic Magic Festival-- once known as the Harry Potter Festival.

"We are still celebrating literary magic and a lot of the creatures and potions Rowling uses are ones from mythology that have been used for years,” said Tracy Fisher, Roanoke minister of magic for the Generic Magic Festival.

It can be very hard to define something like success, but surely this must qualify for the WB's legal and business departments. Through its capricious bullying efforts, it has managed to turn a convention of fans of its product into something so generic so as to include the word in its festival's name. Yay? Those attending will still know exactly what they're there for, with the only real changes to this year's festival being the name, the amount of work organizers now have to do thanks to the changes, and likely some anger towards the studio from the festival's participants.

Craig Slomczewski, creator of the magical objects and that you’ll see around the festival, tells 10 news that the copyright infringement limitations made this year's event a challenge to design.

“It seemed like an impossible task because you are used to what you see in the movies and it makes you think out of the box that much more,” Slomczewski said.

Truly, today, justice has been done.

Filed Under: bullying, copyright, generic magic festival, harry potter, trademark
Companies: warner bros.